Free Lunch by The Peak

Banks have been using machine learning and data science for a long time. But Eric Morrow, BMO's Managing Director of the bank's Enterprise Data Science & AI group, believes new advances in AI tech are expanding the range of what can be done. On this episode, he explains how Canadian banks are using AI, what the limitations are, and how AI gets adopted at large companies with a low tolerance for ri...

Jean-François Tardif, president of Timelo Investment Management, sees the Canadian and American economies diverging and thinks it could lead to the loonie falling to 50 cents against the U.S. dollar. In this episode, he explains why he believes that's a likely outcome, why Canada's currency is becoming detached from commodity prices, and how these changes are shaping his investment decisions. ----...

Tyler Meredith has been one of the driving forces behind no fewer than six federal budgets and served as the top economic advisor to Prime Minister Trudeau and two finance ministers, so he knows a thing or two about how budgets are made. Today he joins us to explain how exactly the federal government's budget (like the one released last week) is put together, where the ideas come from, who decides...

Our official statistics dramatically underestimate how rich the richest Canadians are. That's the finding of a new report by Dan Skilleter at Social Capital Partners, a think tank that studies Canada's economy. In fact, when it comes to wealth inequality, Canada isn't much more equal than the United States. Dan joins us today to detail what he found in his new report and explain why Statistics Can...

If you want to make yourself mad about the state of transportation in Canada, all you have to do is go to Europe.  Anyone who’s made the trip can tell you that in almost every European country, it’s faster, more convenient, and more comfortable to take public transportation than it is here.  And the same is true now in many parts of Asia—places that not long ago were much poorer than Canada, with...

If the world is going to pull off a clean energy transition, we need way more batteries. And we need them to be more efficient, more affordable, and more powerful. That's where Dr. Michael Metzger and the Canadian Battery Innovation Centre at Dalhouse University come in. They're working at the cutting edge of battery technology, and on this episode Dr. Metzger joins us to explain how batteries wor...

Indigenous communities were more or less shut out of fully participating in Canada's economy for centuries, but that is beginning to change. Quietly, First Nations and Indigenous communities across Canada are beginning to take ownership stakes in major clean energy, resource development, and infrastructure projects. But this isn't happening without complications and challenges. On this episode, we...

This episode originally aired on October 17, 2023. Many of us have a vague sense of what industrial policy means, and we might even have an opinion about the specific forms it can take. But that fuzziness around even the definition of industrial policy has made studying it — and learning what makes industrial policy succeed and fail — difficult. Dr. Réka Juhász is trying to change that. Through he...

It's a big year for elections, with voters heading to the polls in 64 countries representing nearly half of the world's population. How some of those votes turn out will have a major impact on Canada. In this episode, Graeme Thompson, senior analyst with Eurasia Group's Global Macro-Geopolitics practice, joins us to break down what's happening in elections in India, Mexico, the UK, and — of course...

The semiconductor industry is dominated by giant companies like TSMC, Intel, and Nvidia. But more and more startups are beginning to emerge in the space, and one promising example is based Canada. Untether AI is a specialized chipmaker focusing on applications where energy efficiency and speed are critical. To date, it's raised more than $200 million. Untether's CEO Chris Walker joins us on this e...

Tokyo is the most populous city in the world, and is growing just as quickly as Canada's largest cities. Yet unlike Canadian cities, Tokyo's housing is still (shockingly) affordable, its transit is fast and reliable, and it's teeming with small businesses and entrepreneurs trying their hand at restaurants, cafes, book stores, and all variety of niche services. So how did they do it? And what lesso...

BMO Capital Markets Chief Investment Strategist Brian Belski feels pretty good about where the stock market is headed this year. He joins us on this episode of Free Lunch to explain why he's bullish, the sectors and stocks he likes right now, and why he thinks turning off the news is one of the best things you can do for your portfolio. ----- Links: BMO 2024 Market Outlook: https://nesbittburns.bm...

Adam Seaborn from Playmaker Capital joins us to talk about recently announced plans by Disney, Fox, and Warner Bros. to launch a sports streaming bundle, what it means for the sports media business, and who wins and who loses when streaming takes over the sports world. Plus: What makes the NFL such a great television product? ----- Links: More episodes of Free Lunch by The Peak: https://readthepea...

New year, new supply chain disruptions. Between conflicts in the Middle East impacting shipping in the Red Sea, drought paralyzing the Panama Canal, or the ongoing war in Ukraine, we are not done with supply chain disruptions just because the pandemic is behind us. Polly Mitchell-Guthrie is with Kinaxis, a Canada-based supply-chain management platform, to share with us how businesses are respondin...

One of the big factors driving our housing affordability crisis is that it's become much more expensive to build new housing than it used to be. But why? To get an overview of what's driving growth in housing costs, we're joined by Russell Hixson, the editor of SiteNews, a trade outlet covering Canada's construction sector. 2:12 - What it costs to build housing in different cities now, and why it'...

There are a lot of exciting developments happening in the neurotechnology space that could dramatically improve how we detect, prevent, and treat cognitive decline and conditions like dementia and diseases like Alzheimer's. On this episode, one of the world's foremost neuroscientists, Dr. Allison Sekuler, joins us to talk about her work in this field, some of the innovations she's most excited abo...

This time last year, not many people were predicting the economy would look like it does today. Many big name economists predicted that we would need to endure years of high unemployment to get inflation back down to a more manageable level. So why were those forecasts so off? And what lessons should we draw from what happened last year to inform our predictions for the economy this year? Roger Al...

And we're back for 2024. On this episode, Daniel Foch, real estate investor and co-host of the Canadian Real Estate Investor Podcast, joins us to break down the state of Canada's housing market heading into 2024 and his bets for the year to come. 5:46 - The three possible scenarios ahead of us 8:26 - What a soft landing in the economy means for housing 10:48 - The looming "renewal wall" in mortgag...

The Free Lunch gang and Brett Chang from The Peak Daily podcast see how their forecasts from last year fared and make some new calls for the year to come. Thanks for listening, and see you back in the new year. Links: More episodes of Free Lunch by The Peak: https://readthepeak.com/shows/free-lunch Follow Taylor on Twitter: @taylorscollon Follow Sarah on Twitter: @sarahbartnicka Subscribe to The P...

Adin Wener is one of the owners and founders of Henderson Brewing Company, one of the largest craft breweries in Toronto, and he joins us today to explain the ins-and-outs of the craft beer business, from supply to chains to hardware innovation to product development. 3:10 - What is Henderson Brewing and how did it grow? 7:11 - Why craft beer boomed, and where it's at today. 9:13 - The basics of t...

As Ontario's Minister of Economic Development, Job Creation and Trade, Vic Fedeli has been front and centre for some of the largest investments in the province's history happening in clean tech. He joins us today to talk about how he thinks about industrial policy, what it takes to attract businesses to the province, and why he thinks the big bets the province has taken on EVs and batteries will p...

Crypto has been through a challenging period, with the sharp decline of prices in DeFI and NFT markets, the collapse of FTX, and Binance's CEO facing criminal charges. But with Bitcoin on a sustained rise, there are signs that the crypto winter may be ending. Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong joins us to talk about what's next for the industry and his long-term vision for crypto. 2:33 - After everythin...

Jeremie Harris, co-founder of AI safety research company Gladstone AI, joins us to explain the fallout from the OpenAI board shakeup, what it means for the AI space, and the implications for work on AI safety. 2:37 - What went down at OpenAI 7:19 - What this means for Microsoft 9:00 - Winners & losers post-shakeup 11:04 - The conflict between the AI safety crowd and accelerationists 14:23 - Differ...

In a lot of ways, the economy we have is created by our laws. That may seem obvious, but it’s easy to forget that when you’re just going about your business, all those little daily transactions happen with a larger framework. Things like how much the stuff you buy costs and what people get paid are, to a great extent, determined by the laws we make rather than just “economic laws.” One of the most...

In a lot of ways, the economy we have is created by our laws. That may seem obvious, but it’s easy to forget that when you’re just going about your business, all those little daily transactions happen with a larger framework. Things like how much the stuff you buy costs and what people get paid are, to a great extent, determined by the laws we make rather than just “economic laws.” One of the most...